The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [114]
The pole teetered. Then fell.
The crowd groaned.
Looking unperturbed, Harry dropped his reins and leaned over to pat Snowy with both hands. Snowman had failed to beat Diamant’s clear round, handing the blue to the German horse. Second place would be decided on time, and when Snowman’s time came up on the clock, the crowd erupted in applause. The plow horse had finished the class in second place.
In the winner’s circle in the center of the ring, cameras flashed, lighting up the winking silver trophy. Eleo Sears accepted it with a gallant air, her weathered, angular face a familiar sight in the ring. When Harry’s name was called, he took the red ribbon and waved to the crowd. Second place at the National Horse Show.
The Diamond Jubilee was off to a glorious start.
Next to Snowman’s stall, the children added the silken red ribbon, protesting their certainty that Snowman would win first place in the next class. Nobody could convince them that their horse deserved any less than the blue.
The next night was the first of the open jumping classes, where any touch or rub against a fence counted against a horse. Diamant did not compete in touch classes, but the competition would still be tough. The morning elimination round had winnowed down the pack. Only the top contenders would jump in the nighttime round. Every horse that had been chasing points all fall was entered, and every horse that completed a round in the ring tonight had a shot at winning. At the Garden, there were no heirs apparent: one false step, one missed turn or misjudged distance, could put a champion out of the running. Every year, new heroes were born and a few seasoned competitors turned into also-rans.
Harry was riding both Night Arrest and Snowman tonight. The mare was fidgety and could not seem to get used to the surroundings. Harry took her to the tiny schooling area, wedged between the ramp to the arena gate and the edge of the stalls. Competitors swapped stories about the best way to sharpen a horse within the Garden’s cramped confines. Trainers set up jumps in the barn aisles, sharing space with grooms primping horses for their moment under the spotlights. The trainer Cappy Smith was said to use the “three-stall method,” jumping his horses from one stall into the next, making a perfect one-stride in-and-out. Riders looked for opportunities to pole their horses, sometimes arming grooms with broomsticks to rap the horses’ legs on the way up the ramp to the ring, timing these blows to the moment when an ASPCA representative had ducked around a corner.
Harry rode Night Arrest around the cramped schooling space, trying to transmit calm to the horse. If she was already this nervous in the schooling area, Harry wondered, how would she react to the grand spectacle in the ring? He did not know how long it would be until his horse was called. The gatekeeper, who worked for Eleo Sears in the off-season, was known for playing favorites and being influenced by tips. Like everything else at the National, there was a quasi-invisible pecking order, based on status, position, and wealth.
The ramp up to the ring was spread with sawdust and hollow underneath—wooden slats, like frets on a guitar keyboard, anchored the horses’ hooves. More than one horse had been disqualified before ever entering the ring because the rider could not coax the horse up the ramp, and grooms stood at the ready behind, in case a horse needed encouragement in the form of a well-timed flick of a whip.
Night Arrest jigged up the ramp without prodding, barely contained underneath Harry’s steadying hands. Up at the gate, there was nowhere to circle, just a narrow alleyway. He tried to keep her moving. She was nervous and skittish as a cat—each time the crowd burst out into raucous applause, she spooked and pranced in place.
When the big gate swung open, she shot through it like a stone from a catapult. Harry squeezed the reins